The Beauty Of A Flower Unseen
by GMTH
Summary: Behind a stranger's face waits a friend. Possible triggers due to mentions of ECT and a character with bipolar disorder having a depressive episode. The title is a reference to The Little Prince, and the summary is a paraphrase of a Maya Angelou quote. Takes place immediately after the Season 1 finale.


The first session of ECT was the worst, but only because Carrie didn't know what to expect. Oh, the doctors had explained everything carefully beforehand, and Maggie had held her hand and assured her again and again it would be okay, but what did they really know about it? None of them had ever been through it, how could they possibly know what it was like?

"It's not like _Cuckoo's Nest_," they told her. "You go to sleep, you wake up, it's over," they told her. Maybe a mild headache. A little short-term memory loss. You'll be fine. Nothing to worry about. Nothing barbaric about it.

Okay, she could accept that. On an intellectual level, anyway. _Cuckoo's Nest_ was Hollywood, and Hollywood always exaggerated. Hell, look at the way they portrayed the CIA. Only a passing resemblance to reality, and then usually only by mistake. There was no reason to expect this to be any different.

But when they put the mouth guard in, and she realized it was actually going to happen, she was seized by a hot rush of panic. It ebbed almost immediately, thanks to the anesthetic, but those few seconds before she went under were pure terror. Her last thoughts were of Brody, a surge of love so strong it almost – _almost_ – overwhelmed the humiliation and despair of knowing she had been wrong, so very wrong about him, about what he was, every step of the way. The blackness came and took it all away, and if this was what death was going to be like, it would be sweet.

And then, she was awake.

She blinked. The fluorescent lights overhead seemed terribly bright, and she shut her eyes again at once. It wasn't a choice, really; her eyelids were too heavy to make the effort to keep them open worthwhile.

She felt better than she thought she would feel. She had the headache they'd told her she'd get, and parts of her felt like they'd been twisted a little too far in directions they'd had no business twisting in to begin with, but it was no worse than waking up the morning after a night of whiskey and sex. There was something unpleasant going on far off in the distance, something ugly with razor-sharp teeth and claws that could rip her belly open with a single swipe if she let it get close enough, but for the moment, at least, she couldn't put a name to it, and so it had no hold on her. The room was cool and quiet, and her blankets were soft. She wasn't quite at peace, but she thought it might be as close to it as she'd ever been able to achieve.

"Carrie."

She turned her head toward the voice, which had been accompanied by a gentle squeeze that let her know its owner was holding her hand. It was a struggle to open her eyes, and an even greater struggle to focus them. Her reward was the face of a man swimming into view, a warm but cautious smile curving lips nearly lost in a beard shot through with grey. He was sitting in a chair drawn up to her bedside, leaning in so close his arms rested on the blanket from the elbow up so he could grasp her hand.

She knew him; of course she knew him. She'd known him for years... hadn't she? Yes. Yes, of course. His name was right there on the tip of her tongue, so close she felt she should know it as well as her own, yet far enough away to be just out of reach. By rights, the sight of a stranger – even a stranger that felt as familiar to her as this one – sitting in her hospital room should have made her nervous, perhaps even frightened. Instead, she knew it would have been out of place for him not to be there. His presence there was good. Not just good, but _right_.

"Hey," she croaked, then cleared her throat. "How long have I been out?"

"Not long. An hour, maybe less."

The cool air that had been so pleasant a few moments ago whispered across the bare skin of her arms in frigid waves that drew goosebumps in their wake. "What are you doing here?" she said, pressing the button that raised the head of her bed until she was propped nearly upright. "They told me, uh..." What had they told her? There'd been three people in the room when they'd said it: a doctor, a nurse, and another woman standing in the background with her arms crossed and a grim expression of concern on her face. A woman with blonde hair. It clicked. "They told me I couldn't have visitors."

"I told them it was CIA policy to have an agent present whenever another agent is under anesthesia. In case they say something that could compromise national security."

"And they believed that?" Carrie scoffed. "That sounds like a bad spy novel."

He chuckled. "I have an honest face," he said softly, and the twinkle in his eye revealed the joke for what it was. "Actually, I'm pretty sure it was Maggie's doing. She pulled some strings to get me in here."

Maggie. That was who the blonde had been. Shit, her own sister. How could she forget her own sister? A series of faces pulsed in her head – her father, Nazir, David... Christ, even her fucking mailman – and she was able to put a name to each one, but this brought her no solace. It was what she couldn't remember that mattered right now. Her sister and this man were important people in her life, perhaps the most important. If she could forget them, how much more was gone?

She might never know, and the thought chilled her to the bone. She started to shiver.

He must have noticed, because his smile faded. "How do you feel?"

She nodded briskly in his direction, trying to smile, though her eyes were beginning to prickle. "I'm okay," she said, but a sob caught in her throat a moment later, proving her a liar. She wasn't okay. She'd been so wrong. So stupid. She'd thrown away everything that mattered, that much she knew, even if she couldn't remember exactly how or why. And the things she hadn't thrown away had now been taken, and who knew if or when she would ever get them back. The worst part was the dawning realization that she deserved this hell she'd brought upon herself. If the universe were a just place, she'd be getting worse. Her face grew hot with shame.

"Carrie."

"I'm okay," she said again, more forcefully this time, eyes brimming with tears that burned on her cheeks when they started to fall. She gripped his hand tightly to anchor herself as her shivers turned to trembling so violent her teeth began to chatter. The temperature in the room seemed to have dropped ten degrees in the last few seconds alone, and she was suddenly, viciously, grateful for it; it gave her something concrete to focus on rather than this nameless anguish she didn't quite understand. "I'm just... I'm so _cold_."

He released her hand abruptly, and she screwed her eyes shut against the flood of tears, certain her worthlessness had driven him away. The mattress dipped beside her, and she felt his hands on her shoulders, first with a hesitant caress, then a gentle grasp as he pulled her forward. She allowed herself to collapse against his chest, her face nestled in the crook of his neck, and didn't resist when he wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, one hand tangling in her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

She sat in his embrace like a block of wood, tears flowing into the open collar of his shirt. He didn't rock her or try to shush her, as one might a child, and the last shred of her rational mind was glad of it; she didn't know if she could stand the pity and condescension these actions would imply. He simply held her. Moored her, somehow, like a balloon tethered to a rock, and she knew no matter how frantically she bobbed in the wind he would never let her drift away.

Eventually, her crying eased from sobs into a series of staccato gasps, then stopped altogether. She swiped at her eyes and let her hand linger on his chest, just over his heart, and was lulled by the even rise and fall of his chest with each breath. A nurse came into the room at one point, presumably to check on her, but he waved her away without speaking, without letting Carrie go. The warmth of his body seeped into her bit by bit, chasing away the cold, melting the ice that stiffened her spine until she felt as limp in his arms as a patched, moth-eaten rag doll.

She started awake when he moved, jarred into sudden alertness. "What happened?" she asked, rubbing one burning eye with the heel of her hand. Her voice was muffled by the damp, humid material of his shirt where her cheek had rested. Her face itched with dried tears.

"My back," he said apologetically. "I'm a little stiff."

"How long have I –" She jerked away from him and craned her neck to glance at the clock next to her bed. He'd been holding her for hours. "Oh, my God, I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," he said. "We both needed it." He stood up to stretch, hands braced on the small of his back, then sat back down in the chair by the bed. "You okay?" he said, cupping her hand between his own once again.

She nodded, and this time the answer was a truthful one. His warmth lingered on her hospital gown as she leaned back against her pillows, limp with the purge of emotion. "You don't have to stay," she said, embarrassed to have kept him here so long already, but he just smiled and shook his head.

"I've nowhere else I need to be," he said, raising his chin so the light glinted across his glasses. "And I think you could use a friend right now."

She felt her tired eyes start to brim once again, though for an entirely different reason this time. "Thank you, Saul," she said, and a moment later her breath caught. "Saul," she whispered. "Your name is Saul."

He beamed.


End file.
